Susan Moss

In residence: May 11 – 25

Susan Mosshas an MFA in painting and drawing from the University of Nebraska. She has been drawing since a child. Much of her work has focused on large-scale drawings that explore domesticity, memory, and the ordinary as recurring themes. Several years ago she took up the study of historic and contemporary textiles and began using stitch, especially hand embroidery, as a way of drawing. Her work has been exhibited regionally and nationally in over eighty venues. Moss teaches contemporary textile art and all levels of drawing in the Department of Art & Design at Fort Lewis College in Durango, CO.

About her work:

Stitched marks and lines meander, coalesce, or nervously bob across the surface, describing a world where domestic objects, vegetation, and birds reside (or die) together. These hand-stitched drawings emerge from a desire to draw with thread, to locate a drawing aesthetic in textile work, capturing the sense of immediacy and improvisation associated with drawing. They also explore connections between domesticity and the natural world, at times collapsing distinctions between inside and out.

My work is quiet and might be considered lacking in skill. However, I think that its simplicity, casualness, seemingly accidental nature are strengths, and that these aspects can engage viewers and makers in an open, unthreatening way. My approach to stitch looks like something that anyone could do. And, it’s true! Most anyone could! What I enjoy most about stitch is working without concern for technical perfection, in more spontaneous ways.

For more information on Susan’s work please see her website: susanmmoss.com

Marie Alarcón

In residence: May 30 – June 13

Marie Alarcón is a multimedia artist with a focus on video and sound, based in Philadelphia, PA. She has a B.A. in Non-Fiction Filmmaking and Post Colonial Studies from The Evergreen State College, Olympia, WA, and a Masters of Fine Arts with a Certificate in Time Based Media, from the University of Pennsylvania, School of Art and Design. Alarcón has worked in community media as an educator and producer since 2006 and currently works at PhillyCAM, the Public access television station in Philadelphia, PA, as their Production Coach.

Alarcón’s art works focus on environmental spaces and the silent historical relationships embedded in the geography, often through sound collage and movement. As a multi-medium artist, they create music/sound design, video art, and performance. Inspired by liminality, hybridity and the way that cinema functions as collective memory, they use digital manipulation and animation in their work, with an interest in digital/analog hybrids that reclaim a tactile relationship to the hyper-real. Her relationship to environment and place is informed by psychogeography, and notions of place and its production. With a focus on the problematic of communication, she continuously asks “how do we express the invisible in a culture of visible evidence?” and “In what ways can technological innovations begin to bridge the experiential gap between ourselves and others?”

Mami Takahashi

In residence: June 16 – 30

Mami Takahashi is a Japanese interdisciplinary artist, who integrates traditional and contemporary approaches in ideas, methods, and media to address perspectives on foreignness and Americanness. As a non-native English user and recent immigrant to the US, she incorporates her awkwardness in new culture, and often her clumsy English usage into visual practices. She shares the struggle non-native English speakers face when communicating with first-language American speakers, and the limits imposed through these interactions. Takahashi uses multiple methods of art making such as painting, craft-making, digital video, performance, language-base works, and audio, frequently creating large scale installations that explore the boundaries in the social norms between cultures.

As a nation historically struggling with its diversity problems, the U.S. offers a unique
perspective on the relationship between native English speakers and an increasing immigrant population. She believes that art re-ritualizes the everyday to reveal something about our lives.

Steven Walker

In residence: August 3 – 17

Steven Walker biography

“ I didn’t come from a family of artists, I wasn’t top of my class or win a lot of awards but I’ve always had a strong work ethic and the passion to work on my craft.”

Born in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and raised in Richmond, Virginia he discovered his love for art at a very early age. With little interest in anything else, Steven took the next big step towards his pursuit of a career in art when he earned his bachelor’s degree in fine arts at Virginia Commonwealth University. He would later earn his masters in fine arts from Marywood University, where he also met his wife/ fellow artist Evelyn.

Instant success was not in the cards as Steven continued showing at a string of coffee shops, libraries and other businesses. Eventually, his hard work paid off with a few local awards that soon caught the attention of two gallery owners. Since his venture into gallery life, his landscapes have been well received by collectors as his paintings are part of several private collections such as Airstream Inc., Hilton Hotels, the Boy Scouts of America, Dominion Resources, Virginia State Department, the National Parks Service, the Columbus Convention Center and the United States Air Force.

Since going full time as an artist in 2008, Steven has been included in several local and national juried competitions including the Richeson 75 Landscape Competition, Plein Air Salon, the International Salon Competition, the Oil Painters of America Salon and the Art Renewal Center. Steven also had the privilege of being a part of a statewide traveling exhibition with the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

He has participated in several artist in residency programs in Michigan, Indiana, Iowa and Colorado. In 2014, he was selected to create the Ohio Governor’s Art Awards by the Ohio Arts Council and in 2015 he received honorable mention in the Southwest Art Magazine’s Artistic Excellence Competition.

Steven currently resides in Hahira, Georgia where he continues to work hard on the advancement of his career, with the assistance of his lovely wife Evelyn and studio assistant/daughter Poppy. Currently, his work is represented in Kentucky, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Oklahoma and Washington, D.C.

“I should have quit years ago but that would have proven so many people right.” – SW

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Statement

“There’s a solitary elegance that I try to capture in all of my paintings.

It’s all about engaging the viewer in “the moment”, whether it’s a quaint

country house on a sunny day or a storm approaching an empty field.

I have a fascination with the simple life and the sights that are often

missed along the side of the road. We often find ourselves too caught up

in the hustle and bustle of life to take time to just take notice of the land

around us. To capture a forgotten area or structure in a single moment in

time and to be able to share that experience with others is what makes

Bryna Cofrin-Shaw

In residence: September 21 – October 5

Bryna Peebles Cofrin-Shaw is originally from Northampton, Massachusetts, and currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. She is a graduate of Brown University (BA Environmental Studies) and Hunter College (MFA in Fiction). In addition to writing and teaching, Bryna is an amateur bread-maker, moose lover, and competitive cyclist.

Bryna plans to use her time at Good Hart working on anovel-in-stories that grapples with intimate politics and queer family-building, as well as the interplay of ecology, climate psychology and sexuality. She plans to spend as much time as she can in the varied, splendid habitats of northern Michigan, and to allow these landscapes to shape and infect her creative work, especially as she considers the relationship between human and environmental traumas. She looks forward to collaborating with the Little Traverse Conservancy, and taking part in the Harbor Springs Festival of the Book during her time as a Good Hart Artist-in-Residence this September.